Officials of Florida Lottery Caution Lottery Players of E-mail Scam

The Officials of Florida Lottery are cautioning people about a new e-mail scam which informs the recipient of winning a prize from Florida Lottery.

Instead of asking for money to take away the fictitious prize, the scam e-mail asks the susceptible recipient to fill a form to claim prize which includes private details such as date of birth, social security number, contact number and address of the person.

In addition, in order to prove its authenticity, the vicious e-mail presents the e-mail ID of the official lottery customer service as the sender.

Doug Pitts, the director of security at Florida Lottery stated that there are scores of such e-mail scams which use the name of Florida Lottery in a bid to lure gullible users into revealing their financial or private details, resulting identity theft or income loss. Similar problems can be faced in this latest scam as well, according to a statement published by earthtimes.org on March 16, 2010.

The officials of Florida Lottery inform that in a genuine e-mail, players of lottery are never asked for their social security numbers and are usually told to collect their prize money by going to the nearest district office of Florida Lottery or downloading claim forms through the authorized lottery site. Moreover, the officials added that players are never contacted for winning a prize unless they have participated in a second chance drawing or a promotional game.

In the mean time, to put a halt on such e-mail scams, officials of Florida Lottery have suggested some precautionary measures. To begin with, users should always purchase tickets of Florida Lottery form certified retailers. They can get to know the location of their nearest retailer from www.flalottery.com. Further, users should not interchange their lottery ticket with a stranger. And finally, people are also strongly advised not to pay to claim a prize.

Moreover, users are recommended to visit the website of Florida Lottery for further information. For registering their complaints of a lottery scam, users should call the Customer Service Division of Florida Lottery at their helpline numbers.

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» SPAMfighter News - 3/25/2010